Column: The Best You’ve Never Heard; Death Cab frontman records sweet perfection of lo-fi pop
This week’s band isn’t really a band, but I like the album too much to care. All-Time Quarterback is the now-defunct side project of Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. Recorded with a handheld cassette player, some old Casio keyboards, and a handful of pop songs, the project’s eponymous release is a unique, quirky, album.
The Magnetic Fields are an easy comparison – there is even a cover of their “Why I Cry” on the album – but Gibbard’s literary lyrics differentiate this album from those in a similar pop vein. His pathos isn’t as theatrical, and his joy is more believable.
All-Time Quarterback is unique in the way it ties childhood innocence to an adult voice. Simple refrains meet complex verses while Gibbard’s nostalgic, wistful phrasing attaches itself to all the tracks. Lyrics like, “I left the timberline for oil slicks and parking fines” sound believable when sung through the static and hiss of a cassette recorder, and the light percussion of digital beeps and bad drum machines add a gentle structure that leaves the loose playing and arrangements room to breathe.
It’s almost as if Ben Gibbard made a list of all the things that lo-fi pop should be and, as he recorded, checked them off one by one. It’s sweet without being saccharine, tender but not tedious, and innocent but never idiotic. In short, All-Time Quarterback is a balancing act. There is a hint of Death Cab For Cutie, but more often this plays like a history of indie pop.
Stories of punk rock bands, making out in the closet and adolescent confusion have never sounded so credible or, for that matter, so good. Yes it’s only one album, but I don’t blame Ben Gibbard. It’s hard to imagine someone making something this perfect twice.
Comments and questions can be sent to Zach at
zpendleton@cc.usu.edu.